Less than three months to go

My name is Kyle and I am 26 years old currently working in the banking industry in the oil booming economy that is Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My work has graciously granted a 4 month leave of absence making this dream a reality.

About three years ago I had a dream, conjured up in the last year of university. I wanted to explore South America by land and I was going to take this jeep.

At the time I was quite into 4x4ing and camping and was avidly developing my love for wrenching. One day while browsing Expedition Portal I came across Dan's website; The Road Chose Me (http://theroadchoseme.com/). Somebody else was actually doing this trip! Somehow I have to make this happen... Well there weren't any takers, life went on.... a career was started and the jeep was sold. 

In 2011 a friend asked if I was interested in going to Thailand and Cambodia for a couple weeks. The travel bug was reignited. Around that time I was also getting into dirt biking, at home in Alberta as well as beautiful British Columbia. Thailand was also the first time I legally took a bike on the street, I was hooked. In Cambodia I found Siem Reap Dirtbike tours (http://www.siemreapdirtbikes.com/). I convinced them to take a friend and I out for the day, no formal tour. It was a highlight of the trip. Exploring far from the tourist areas. Terrain ranging from rice fields to mine fields to ancient hill top ruins. It was amazing.

Life continued. In spring 2012 I bought a house and shortly there after a 2003 DR 650. I figured a DR would be close enough to a dirt bike to make me feel comfortable on the street. At the time I was also influenced by ride reports on Advrider, the Long Way Around and Motorcycle Diaries.

In September 2012 I met Trevor at a friends BBQ, within the first 10 minutes the South America motorcycle trip/dream came up. I was not going to let this opportunity pass! In October it was finalized. One year later we would depart for Argentina by motorcycle. Shortly thereafter Alex joined the crew. I met Alex in Business School in 2007. We have worked on projects together and started a business over the years.

So here we are, July 2013, less than three months to departure. The parts have been ordered, the bikes purchased and the approximate route set. This dream is becoming a reality!

Ed: Tagged post for future reference and removed double spaces.

It's a dangerous business, going out your door (Route)

You will have to forgive me for using multiple maps to show the route, Google Maps has issues with certain border crossings (For example, it doesn't know how to get out of Colombia). These are very high level planning routes and no guarantees are made to their final validity.

Proposed Route Part 1

Points A and B are pretty standard, nothing extra there.
Point C may come after a detour from Mexico into Belize.
Point D states La Ceiba but the plan is to take a ferry (with the bikes hopefully) over to Roatan (Home to the largest reef outside of the Great Barrier Reef) and SCUBA dive for a week.
Point E is where we need to be in the middle of November to catch the boat to get us to Cartagena

Proposed Route Part 2

Point B will actually include a detour into Venezuela, because hey, we're there so why not?

Proposed Route Part 3

Point B allows us to park the bikes and fly to the Galapagos Islands for a week, primarily to dive.
Point C is Machu Picchu
Point E is the Uyuni Salt Flats, which I'm certain you have seen pictures of (Wiki, Picture you really are looking for). Sunscreen mandatory.
Depending on time we may try to go through Paraguay.
Point F is where we will pick up one or two travelers to join us for the leg to Ushuaia and then to Santiago. There will also probably be a ferry trip over to Montevideo to cross Uruguay off the list.
Point G is not actually the final location, Ushuaia is located on the landmass to the South East of G and there is a ferry to take, but Google doesn't know about it.

Google Map Links:
P1
P2
P3

(All three maps add to 23,535 km ridden if you are curious, but that number will be low)

Last Post: Star Trek, Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Though it is actually "He's dead Jim")

It's dead Jim

Well, not quite. Kyle purchased a new bike due to wanting a lower mileage version. He had replaced the forks on the first with RM250 Inverted so we swapped the front ends of the bikes.

(New is closest with old forks still on)

Another look of the partially stripped bikes. Kyle's car project is also visible and the two new Acerbis 5.3 gallon fuel tanks and Corbin seat. The new seat is an annoying piece of gear for me, I love it after an hour on the bike as the original is like sitting on a fence rail, but it is wider which being short makes the bike a little more annoying to handle in the city and on shorter rides.

Last Post: Another One Bites the Dust - Queen

Little about Trevor and how this trip came to be..

Alrighty this is a first for me, but ill give it a shot. Seeing as Many of the Boender's, Wein's and extended friends/whoever probably have no idea who this Trevor guy is i'll give you a short debrief.

Born and raised in Smithers B.C. Grew up on a large acerage In the country and started riding motorbikes from a young age and absolutely loved it. In grade 11 a buddy and I decided we were going to buy new Honda 650 enduros after we graduated and ride to South America. That did not happen due to the money factor and just life in general changing for both of us. I checked out university in edmonton for a year and met tons of awesome people and then realized that I wanted to do some more exploring. Worked for the summer and headed out to New Zealand for close to a year and absolutely loved it. Ill skip ahead here and all of a sudden I randomly met Kyle and after finding out we both had the same dream to motorbike to S.A. we decided to do this trip that night. Soon after Alex joined the crew. Since then Kyle and Alex have been doing a lot of planning and thinking about every possible bike issue we might run into which has been very handy. Generally I just like to "wing" things which im sure we will be doing a lot of on this trip I forsee but the planning they have done will make life a lot nicer in terms of bike breakdowns/repairs. Currently im framing houses and looking forward to heading out on this adventure. That's it for now i guess. Till next time.